Pagalpanti in Japan

A new book by an Indian writer explores the origin of Japan’s bizarre quirks from singing toilets to poisonous hot pot meals.

In her new book, Orienting: An Indian in Japan (HarperCollins India), Pallavi Aiyar writes with charm, humour and occasional bafflement about the many things that made life in Japan seem stranger than fiction. Among these were the sight of children as young as six navigating some of the world’s busiest intersections unsupervised, the celebrity status accorded to flowering trees, the incredible art on manhole covers with motifs of cherry blossom petals, castles, lighthouses, ocean scenes, and elements of local festivals, and the deadly pufferfish that was frequently served as a delicacy. “There could be enough poison in a single pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans,” Aiyar writes with consternation. The bizarre didn’t end here. She saw vending machines that offered everything from cooked meals to origami, and the unbelievably clean ‘smart toilets’ that resembled airplane cockpits, and were equipped to check the user’s blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar and body-fat ratio, all the while playing chirping bird music for the easily embarrassed.

The book, which took a year to write, is based on research and reportage. Aiyar feels lodged in a perpetual proto-writing stage, absorbing her surroundings, and reading deeply about the places she inhabits. At the same time, her brain makes constant connections, she says. “I try to understand new places not only in isolation, but by connecting them to other cultures/societies that I am familiar with. I believe that it is often in comparisons that the most revealing insights lie,” says the author in an email conversation with mid-day.

Aiyar writes about the country’s various quirks: the technological miracles that are Japan’s intelligent toilets, which do everything from playing chirping bird music to mask embarrassing noises to yielding digital measurements of the user’s body-fat ratio. Pics/Getty Images

In the book, Aiyar traverses the country’s large spectrum of offerings for the newly-arrived, from the sublime to the nearly-ridiculous. She reflects on its famed cultural exports from Ikigai (finding purpose) and Shokunin (the relentless pursuit of perfection through the honing of a single craft), to the spirit of Zen that pours into everything, and the central focus on the artistic, from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold to highlight imperfections rather than hiding them, to how eating in restaurants is often about witnessing the chef in performance.

How the country’s prized cherry blossoms have a massive commercial aspect with their motifs on cookie-cutters and laver (edible seaweed), and cherry blossom cocktails common sights at shops and bars during the season.

These artistic and cultural idiosyncrasies also determined the nature of her own writing, Aiyar says. She elaborates that during her stay in China, her first journalistic reports were essentially political stories about the 2003 SARS epidemic and the government cover-up that minimised the numbers of those affected. In Brussels, on the other hand, her first pieces had been around the long-negotiated-but-going-nowhere India-EU trade agreement. In Japan, by contrast, the writing centred on aesthetics, which she says was key to understanding the country itself. She cites Alex Kerr, an American Japanologist, who posits that lovers of China are thinkers, while lovers of Japan tend to be sensuous and intuitive. “There is some truth to that observation, and it influenced the way I approached my books on China [and Japan],” she says. “You will find that aesthetic vein–haikus, flowers, craftsmanship, kintsugi–snaking across every chapter of this book.”

The pufferfish which is a delicacy even though it secretes a powerful neurotoxin that is up to 1,200 times more poisonous than cyanide

At the same time, Aiyar writes with deep insight about the country’s place in global politics and culture. “Japan was not-Europe and not-quite-Asia,” she observes about its curious in-betweenness. She explains that more than any other place that she had been to, Japan blended the comfort of the first world with the anthropologically beguiling complexity of less westernised societies. She cites that trains ran on time, healthcare systems worked, and Michelin-star restaurants abounded, and yet, there was much about the society that was unmistakably “Asian,” from gestures like the “namaste” when at a temple, to the social hierarchies and everyday practices like taking one’s shoes off before entering homes. “In some ways Japan suffers from an identity complex. It identifies with the developed nations of Europe but is also cognisant that it isn’t one of them. It remains in Asia, although geographically and metaphorically on the very edge of the continent.”

Despite Japan’s pro-US tilt after the Second World War, which led to western movies dominating the foreign film market, about a 3,000-strong Rajinikanth fan club exists in Tokyo, while cities like Osaka and Kobe have their own associations. Pics courtesy/Pallavi Aiyar

Devoting a chapter to the Japanese response to the Coronavirus, she writes about the cruise ship Diamond Princess, carrying 3,700 passengers and crew onboard, which docked in Yokohama and the laxity of officials, which led to the first big outbreak of the virus outside China, and then on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s refusal to take the virus seriously in his determination to hold the Tokyo summer Olympic Games.

Aiyer learnt kintsugi, the Japanese art of ceramic repair where cracks in pieces of porcelain are filled in with gold

Aiyar also writes almost with incredulity about certain aspects of the Japanese character, qualities she admits to finding attractive as well as challenging. This is the persistent need to put the comfort and needs of others before one’s own. In the book, she mentions the ‘manner guides’ she was handed constantly during her time there in keeping with the country’s preoccupation with civic conduct. 

Pallavi Aiyar

On the one hand, she says, this makes Japan a paradise. On public transport, even during rush hour, she describes how there is very little noise as people don’t speak on the phone or to each other, so as not to disturb fellow commuters. “To an Indian this is as alien a concept as if it had been invented on Mars. There is none of the elbowing and shoving that is so common in India or China.” On the other hand, she explains how such sensitivity to the behaviour of others leads to passive aggressiveness and social policing that often makes navigating social spaces and situations difficult, with frequent dirty looks thrown at loud talkers, those standing on the wrong side of an escalator, or even those walking around while eating ice cream because it is likely to dirty the sidewalk.

Aiyar has recently moved to Spain and admits to the endemic itchiness in her feet. But she also shares that she wants her children to have the opportunity to have some stability in their school environment until they graduate. “So, for the foreseeable future, it is paella and sangria for me,” she writes. “But in the long term, I want to spend more time, at least several months a year, in India.”

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